The recorder is a popular instrument today, but today’s vision of it is pretty unfair since it's mainly known as a cheap, bad-sounding, school instrument. Indeed, this (recent) vision is more widely spread today than its historical role and background, which is also quite alive today in the hands of a handful of professional recorder players (just to name a few: Dorothee Oberlinger, Pedro Memelsdorff, Dan Laurin, Maurice Steger, Michael Form, Walter van Hauwe, Kees Boeke and the late Frans Brüggen) and also in the form of fine, handmade, beautiful wooden instruments (see http://beautifulrecorders.com).

An important fact that explains it is that professional recorder world is tiny, making it really hard to compete in terms of visibility with the widespread vision of the recorder as an educational tool (the world is full of children trying to make it sound): Professional players are often good, sometimes strong players, but relatively few people. They can’t compare with the vast amount of, say, professional violin, guitar or piano players. No way!